There's no great dearth of terrines, no dreadful famine of chicken liver parfait and, as far as I'm aware, the meatpaste market still thrives in its own quiet way, but where oh where are the great slablike pâtés of my youth?

The same impulse led Puerto Ricans in New York to build casitas, small, brightly painted island-style houses, in vacant lots in the Bronx or Spanish Harlem to offset the surrounding slablike tenement buildings.